The Crusader Journal

By Clement Uwiringiyimana KIGALI (Reuters) – A critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame asked him to free her and her detained mother and sister as she stood in court on Monday charged with forgery and inciting insurrection. Diane Shima Rwigara, who was barred from running against Kagame in August elections, moved to comfort her mother […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. forces killed dozens of Islamic State members in a strike on Monday on two training camps in Yemen, the Pentagon said. The camps in al-Bayda province were being used to train new fighters using AK-47s, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, the Pentagon said in a statement. Islamic State has used […]

(Reuters) – Video-streaming pioneer Netflix Inc added more subscribers than expected in the third quarter as original shows such as the latest season of “Narcos” helped attract more viewers. The company’s shares, which touched a record high on Monday, rose nearly 2 percent to $206.50 after the bell. They had surged about 64 percent this […]

By Julien Toyer, Angus Berwick and Sam Edwards MADRID/BARCELONA (Reuters) – Spain moved closer on Monday to imposing central rule over Catalonia to thwart its independence push as Madrid’s High Court signaled a hardening line by jailing the leaders of two of the largest separatist organizations. Marking the first time senior figures in the secessionist […]

By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sixty-six police officers were killed on the job by felons in 2016, up about 61 percent from 41 deaths a year ago, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Monday. The number was the second highest since 2011, when 72 officers were killed by felons, according to […]

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a decree imposing restrictions on North Korea in order to comply with a United Nations Security Council resolution. The resolution, about special economic measures, was a response to Pyongyang’s missiles tests in late 2016. (Reporting by Denis Pinchuk; Writing by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Andrew […]

By Anna Mehler Paperny TORONTO (Reuters) – The number of asylum seekers walking across the U.S. border into Canada illegally dropped by more than two-thirds in September from August, government data showed on Monday, as officials seek to dispel myths around the country’s refugee system. The decline, to 1,881 from 5,712, brings the total number […]

By Andrew MacAskill and Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker agreed over dinner in Brussels on Monday that the pace of negotiations over Britain’s departure from the European Union should be stepped up. A joint statement described a “constructive and friendly” two-hour meeting, during which […]

By Chris Scicluna VALLETTA (Reuters) – Daphne Caruana Galizia, Malta’s best-known investigative journalist, was killed on Monday when a powerful bomb blew up her car, police said, in a case that stunned the small Mediterranean island. Caruana Galizia, 53, ran a hugely popular blog in which she relentlessly highlighted cases of alleged high-level corruption targeting […]

By Liana B. Baker and Anjali Athavaley (Reuters) – T-Mobile U.S. Inc and Sprint Corp plan to announce a merger agreement without any immediate asset sales, as they seek to preserve as much of their spectrum holdings and cost synergies as they can before regulators ask for concessions, according to people familiar with the matter. […]

Cyprus peace talks interrupted by old plebiscite row

ATHENS (Reuters) – Face-to-face talks between both sides of divided Cyprus broke off on Thursday, sources at the meeting said, after the Greek Cypriot parliament angered Turkish Cypriots by honoring a 1950 plebiscite seeking union with Greece.

The meeting between Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart, Mustafa Akinci, ended abruptly about an hour after it started, after which a go-between had to shuttle between the two to keep the peace process on track.

“Both leaders very strongly said they are committed to this process, and nobody sees this process as over, or terminated, or suspended,” said Espen Barth Eide, the United Nations special envoy who is overseeing the peace negotiations which have been ongoing for almost two years.

The talks aim to end the division of the island, for decades a source of tension between NATO allies Greece and Turkey and an obstacle to Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.

Cyprus’s parliament, comprised solely of Greek Cypriots, adopted a resolution on Feb. 9 commemorating a 1950 unofficial referendum where more than 95 percent of that community voted for “enosis”, or union, with Greece.

The anger that caused among Turkish Cypriots reflects the historic sensitivities on the island which was split in a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek Cypriot coup by elements of the military seeking union with Greece.

The two sides gave differing accounts of what happened on Thursday.

Anastasiades said he took a short break and returned to find Akinci gone. Akinci said Anastasiades walked out, slamming the door.

“Enosis” has always been a deep source of resentment among Turkish Cypriots, and was partly the cause of inter-communal clashes in the 1960s shortly after the island gained independence from Britain.

The notion of unification with Greece has, officially at least, been abandoned as a concept for decades. The Mediterranean island has been a member state of the EU since 2004.

Last week’s vote was proposed by a small nationalist party. Anastasiades’s conservatives abstained and the left-wing party voted against it.

A woman walks next to a fence of the UN-controlled buffer zone in Nicosia, Cyprus February 16, 2017. REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou